the ginkgo tree
by jarofclay42
Summary: [AoKuro, after-WC days] Aomine's mind is a dark place and his heart is not as unshakable as he likes to think.


**I am so fed up with this fic I don't even care anymore hahaha. I started plotting this in February. So much plotting and it was so much better in my head. Like, very. but. AOKURO, RIGHT? C: I put all the blame on the sad Imagine-Your-OTP prompts.**

Beta-ed by Airway Static (sui on AO3) who jusT THANK YOU for putting up with the weird stuff I write.

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He runs a hand over the glass and when he retracts it, it comes away dripping wet. He wipes it on the leg of his pants, jadedly, before resting his chin on it and looking through the small hole he has created in the layer of condensation.

On the other side of the fogged up windowpane of Maji Burger, beyond the deserted crossroad and over the lone lamppost that lights the sidewalk – useless in the thin fog and pale daylight that leaves no shadow – inside the spot of green and around the colourful equipment that towers on the playground with the nobility of majestic castles in the youth's eyes, with its dangling ropes and suspension bridges and flickering slides, there are children. They're probably about five years old, giddy kids scampering about, opening with slim, flailing arms their way into the air full of giggles and cries. Their voices reach Daiki's ears as far off echoes, every screamed word merging with the remnants of the previous ones, floating in waves through the fog but he doesn't need to hear them to detect the kids' happiness – the glee on their young, careless faces, the laughter bubbling out of their rosy lips as they run and smile in their childish frenzy are proof enough.

A crowd of them has gathered, under a structure made of ropes that sport the signs of years of pushing and pulling by dirty shoes and excited hands in the thick but frayed threads. The children are all keeping an expectant eye on the cute girl in the frilly prune dress, waiting for her arms spread out to give the signal, champing at the bit to get started. It's a competition, Daiki realizes as he watches a dense line of kids stretch their limbs forward and climb up, bumping shoulders and elbows into each other's on the long way to the top. There is one, a little kid with sandy hair all over the place who's deft and smiles harder than anyone, proudly showing the juvenile dimples on his chubby cheeks, and he climbs up nimbly; and there is another, bigger, the biggest among the children there, who pushes the kid from below, feet steady on the ground as the little climber inevitably gets the best start out of them all.

It takes just a bunch of seconds for Daiki to see all their arms shaking with the effort, their gazes accidentally falling downwards – the abyss of the height difference opening its mouth beneath them, instantly daunting them, making their head dizzy and beckoning them to get back on the solid ground where everything is evened out and familiar. And still, the blond kid makes his way to the top as the others back down from the challenge, scream at him, gesture at him to come back – Daiki can't hear his voice, but the tall boy keeps shouting something at his friend, his lips forming the same words over and over again but Daiki can't decipher them. The boy climbs and climbs until his hands finally grab the edge of the top platform and he pulls himself up. When his feet land on it, he spins around and the kids look at him from below, scared and amazed at the same time as he shows them a proud smile. But their interest in the game is already wearing thin – they start walking away, the girl in the prune dress turning her back on him along with the others, forgetting his presence and his victory. Still, the blond kid keeps waving at them, trying to catch their attention.

'_Can't he just go back down,_' Daiki thinks, not really interested. But then his eyes are caught by a lone figure walking by the fast food joint in the foggy weather; a slouchy, boring guy Daiki believes he has never seen – there's nothing special about his sleek black hair and the dull lines etched in his face. He walks on the other side of the windowpane, tracing a long, teary line with his index finger on the wet surface that drawls with an irritating, squeaky noise. All the while, he looks at Daiki with a lackluster frown that pushes Daiki's instincts to scowl back peremptorily. He stops when he's right in front of Daiki, only the thin glass dividing them; his fingertip moves out of its straight path along the window and ever so slowly writes a number – '150'.

"I think we should break up," Tetsu suddenly says in between tiny sips of his milkshake.

Daiki snaps his head towards the boy sat across from him. "What?" He chuckles, a little wary, considering the probability that he might have just misheard the other – before getting bored with his own thoughts. "You're joking."

"I never joke, Aomine-kun," Tetsu reminds him matter-of-factly and he is calm, far too calm. He could be talking about the day's shitty weather. "You should know."

Daiki feels sick all of a sudden. He wonders what was in his drink as he watches Tetsu roll the straw from one side of his mouth to the other in silence, give it little nips on the edge. Daiki stays silent, too, listening to the low growl of his guts convulsing inside him at the unpleasant display of zen tranquillity.

"There's always a first time," he finally croaks out after what feels like an awkward eternity.

"Don't you want to ask me why?"

Daiki lays his chin back on the palm of his hand as he snorts in a fit of bitter irony. Towards who, he doesn't know. "Don't I."

Tetsu sends his way a brief, sceptical look before exhaling a pained, unnerving sigh. "I'm sorry, maybe I should rephrase that," he says, curtly. "Do you need me to tell you why?"

After that, he doesn't look at Daiki anymore. He takes another sip as he probably waits for a reply Daiki's voice doesn't feel like giving and Daiki, too, diverts his eyes, that casually fall back on the far, lone boy on the small platform.

The kid has a confused, lopsided grin stretched on his plump lips as he kneels on the wooden edge and gives ear to the only boy who still stands at the base of the construction. It looks like they can't hear each other over the cries and laughter of the others. But the tall boy, Daiki notices, keeps saying those unclear words.

"How can I help you?" the waitress, tight in her striped uniform, asks them sweetly as she stands in front of their table, offering them a cheerful smile.

A familiar, muddy venom drips from his teeth onto his tongue, washes his gums like a gargle and he has to wipe the back of his hand against his mouth to wipe the trickle off. "No. I can live without that."

"I can't stand you anymore," Tetsu admits anyway, his lips drawn into an inexpressive straight line at every pause he takes. "You're loud and obnoxious. You have no respect for anyone."

"Ah, this is stupid," Daiki complains in a bored voice, stretching his legs lackadaisically under the large table. "You knew it. If you can't stand me, you can always leave me."

"That's what I'm doing."

Daiki halts mid-yawn, arms over his head and a hand wavering in front of his open mouth. "Ah," he murmurs, a bit taken aback, "right. _So_ unexpected, huh?"

Tetsu doesn't flinch at the sarcasm – not that Daiki expects him to. But he stands up, leaving the milkshake on the untarnished table surface, and drifts towards the entrance doors, exiting the fast food joint without another word. Daiki takes his time before following him outside; he throws his head back against the top of his seat and gazes dazedly at the plain, boring ceiling before he shrugs everything off and slips out of his seat, brushing past the still smiling waitress without sparing her a glance.

Outside, the sky is as grey as iron, light drops of rain falling around and on him and staining the uneven ground with a familiar, murky wetness. He wraps himself tighter in his black jacket as a lone gust of wind sweeps his way, bending the trees under its strength. In the middle of the street, Tetsu is crouched down, maybe waiting for him, maybe not; his hands nestle the pampered leaves of a delicate baby ginkgo tree whose roots disappear into a dirty plastic vase.

"What are you doing?" Daiki asks, puzzled.

Tetsu takes some time to answer that, apparently too engrossed with the little plant to talk. "I'm gardening, as I always do."

Daiki arches an eyebrow, appalled at the plain response. "You don't _garden_."

"Yes I _do_, Aomine-kun," Tetsu replies, applying a smooth, condescending touch to his words.

"I didn't know." Daiki observes him, hands in his pockets and feet awkwardly kicking at the tiny rocks on the asphalt. Tetsu keeps caressing the plant affectionately, massaging with gentle fingertips every branch and leaf back into a respectable shape.

"You don't know lots of stuff. Things change. People change."

Uneasiness makes Daiki nod numbly at the ambiguous comment. He rocks back and forth on his heels, scratches the back of his neck and he knows his hand grazes against something spiky, a hard-looking lump there, under his shirt, along his spine. He doesn't check what it is.

Tetsu then stands up and places the vase in his hands. He stares at it unfathomably expectant.

"Bring this with you while you go back," he answers Daiki's startled expression. "This rain could kill anybody's roots."

Slowly, reluctantly, Daiki lifts the vase to his eyes and gazes at the plant; a visible shudder runs through his fingers as he cautiously brushes the weak, still growing leaves. They have the shape of hand fans, he thinks, embellished by frayed edges and darker veins engraving the thin texture. They look kind of beautiful in their simplicity.

"Is it poisonous?" Daiki asks, leery. _'Will you look at me already,'_ he adds, but only in his head.

Tetsu shrugs and pats his hands clean, showing a mild interest in the crumbles of dirt falling off of them. "For some. Oh, there's Momoi-san."

As he performs a full turn on his heels, Daiki already feels the annoyance making his eyes roll when he still hasn't come to see the familiar cloud of pink hair blocking his path.

"Where's Tetsu-kun?" Satsuki chirps with a glee brimming with anticipation as she scans the surroundings with her wide, vivid eyes. The happiness in them falters for a moment when they can't catch sight of what they want.

As if it has become a second nature for him, Daiki finishes the fine work of delicately shattering her hopes. "He went away. Gave me this."

"Oh, a nice plant surely," Satsuki affirms and she manages to blink the traces of disappointment away from the corners of her eyes with deafening ease. But she focuses them on the misplaced vase in his hands and Daiki is hit by the sudden need to shield it from her. "It will grow strong. If one nourishes it well."

Instead, he eyes it again, judgingly, trying to foresee the potential hidden in the core of those gnarled branches. "Yeah, I guess," he concedes after some fleeting thinking. "Don't really trust it anyway."

"You don't trust this or you don't trust yourself?" Satsuki inquires ambiguously, resorting to what Daiki recognise as her best manager tone – all overflowing with unnerving innuendos and implied judgment that Daiki always likes brushing off without a care in the world – before she promptly reaches out to the plant. "You can give it to me if it makes you feel," she says and Daiki stumbles back a few feet away from her grabby hands, cradling the vase to his chest and tightening his hold on it to the point where he hears it crack under the pressure of his forearms.

He hisses a greedy and peremptory 'no' to her as he tries to loosen his grip, his vexation aggravating the more he looks at her simper – but that's when he notices the trail of dark red liquid that trickles down Satsuki's fingertips in tiny tears. They make such a strong noise when they fall down that Daiki sees the ground tremble under his feet.

"What's that?" he asks perplexed. Satsuki seems thoroughly surprised by the question, as if she didn't expect him to notice or hadn't noticed herself. But the next moment she's all soft smiles when she spins graciously on her tiptoes, giving a pretty show of the long, torn wounds that decorate her whole back, blemishing her ripped blouse with blood.

She giggles then, in her light, feminine voice that rings bothersome inside his skull. "Remember when you stabbed me?"

Utterly blasé, Daiki only comments, "Ah, yeah," gazing at his own work critically, wondering if he should have put more subtlety into it. "Oops?"

"Ah, don't worry." Satsuki waves it off daintily, apparently already losing interest in the topic, as she takes a few steps forward and gestures at him to follow. "It's not like I expected any better from you."

Daiki chuckles mirthlessly at that. "That's not kind," he says, but the laugh brings the stench of vomit up in his throat and he has to gulp it down. In that moment, he looks down at the plant in his hands and seriously considers letting it fall to the ground. No one would ever know it had been on purpose, after all.

"You aren't either," Satsuki laughs along with him as if her trenchancy couldn't cut deep – it doesn't, Daiki thinks, as nothing does, but still—"Come on, let's get going."

They enter the forest silently, so as to not wake any creature sleeping inside the hollow logs, and their shoes flatten the grass growing luxuriant from the earthy ground. The crowns of the tall trees only let faint sunrays seep through the thick leaves, creating a play of light amongst the greenery that gleams surreptitiously before them, guiding them across the barely visible path that Satsuki seems to know by heart. He trails behind her by habit, glad that everything is silent around them because he likes having a partner in his silence.

Just as quietly, Satsuki crouches down. She kneels in front of a large tree that towers over her figure in a menacing posture and insinuates her frail hand inside a small hole carved into the trunk. It takes some twisting around and shaking for her to eventually pull out a white, smooth-looking paper crane.

"Okay, now we have to find ten thousand of these," she starts explaining as she advances in the forest, cradling the paper crane into her hands like a delicate treasure. "Then we reach the top of the mountain. But you can't read what's inside the paper cranes and you can't look back."

A glimpse of pointed white peeps out among the grass right at his feet and he too picks a paper crane up by a triangular wing, bringing it in front of his nose to better look at it. It's only then that he notices the inked, slender handwriting disappearing into the creases of the sheet. There's a familiar character elegantly written exactly on the fold of the paper crane's slim neck. He tries to follow it, sudden curiosity nipping at his conscience and making his hands restless and itchy – he's about to unfold it to read the entire word when Satsuki's palm presses against his chest, doing nothing except staying there, fingers sprawled on the fabric of his shirt.

"You can't read it," she repeats, suavely, but this time her words cut through the air like a sharpened knife and Daiki hasn't the due strength to confront her. So he lets Satsuki clutch the small paper crane in her claws and roll it into a ball before throwing it back into the grass.

And so they go on, passing trees and hummingbirds and small quivering creatures that mewl in low voices as they quietly walk on the grass and gather paper cranes in their hands. They continue undisturbed until Daiki stops before a fork. "Which one do we take?"

Satsuki doesn't stop picking up her cranes as she briefly looks his way and answers matter-of-factly, "The right one." She takes a moment, a thoughtful one where her fingers fumble with the many folded papers and they keep on falling back to earth; then she sweeps past him and takes the lead along the right path. Daiki doesn't see any difference between this and the other so he doesn't understand why Satsuki seems so sure of her choice. Nonetheless, he follows again without questioning.

But there must be something behind his back; he hears it moving, teetering on the edge of his peripheral vision, just that bit enough to escape it. Suddenly, Satsuki's order not to look back feels like a trap, and he just can't resist it. He takes a chance and throws a look over his shoulder.

There's nothing on the steep slope. Nothing except grass and the light of the pale sun shining on the droplets of dew. And as they climb on the mountain, the path becoming more and more craggy, he _has_ to keep on looking behind – he always makes sure that Satsuki is walking with her eyes directed ahead of her because he thinks she would complain about not following her orders or do something worse – and he keeps seeing nothing, the invisible threat looming but never touching, only grovelling at his ankles, slithering amidst the stalks. He hears a hiss, at one point, and he jerks his head around, his eyes frantically searching out the source of it.

But when he looks ahead again after the umpteenth false alarm, Satsuki's right in front of him, still as a statue of granite, with sad, frowning eyes exploring his face as if she is trying to figure something out that eludes comprehension.

"You've reached the top of the right mountain," she whispers, an unsettling mix of chagrin and dispassion distorting her delicate features into a undecipherable mask of uneasiness that makes Daiki wish he could turn his back on her and walk away. It takes a moment for her words to sink in: as Daiki takes that to look around, he notices indeed that they are in the middle of a clearing, the grassy earth sloping downward all around them. He discerns the outlines of a cliff somewhere behind Satsuki, the carpet of grass stopping abruptly some meters away to let the cloudy iron sky take its place beyond it. "Why do you keep on looking back?"

He's about to answer her – he's about to awkwardly fumble for words while scowling at her because she always has something to reproach him for and he can't stand it anymore – but Satsuki beats him to the draw; only the gaping mouth of the cliff awaits him as she takes him by the wrist and shoves him forward towards it, until the abyss opens in front of him, under his feet and, wide-eyed, he starts falling down.

The world reduces itself to a spinning kaleidoscope as he harshly rolls down the side of the mountain, his arms wrapped tightly around him in defence as his eyes take in only a blur of colour and fine dust rising high from his passage, his body taking with it weed and wild plants and spiky rocks cutting through his jacket. It seems like he's been falling and falling since forever. His heart starts beating louder; it gets more frantic as the possibility that this will _never_ ever stop crosses his mind—but suddenly, he slams against a solid rock rooted deeply in the sandy ground and he can finally unwrap his arms from around him and lay for a second with his eyes closed, revelling in the sudden stillness and apathy of it all.

"Did you lose your paper cranes?"

A short blue skirt that almost lets one espy glimpse of colourful underwear and socks drawn high on tonic tights are what welcomes him as he opens his eyes and scrambles to his feet again. He takes a few, careful steps back, away from the girl.

"Go away, I don't want to talk to you. You fucking threw me off of a mountain."

Satsuki has the decency not to say anything in retort while Daiki strides off on the street unravelling in front of them, the housing project towering on both its sides and casting a large shadow over it.

"Are you sure about this?"

Daiki halts in his tracks, his soles scrubbing loudly against the asphalt, and waits for the oncoming blast of wind to take with it the white wave of scattered papers that blow by them with a crumpling noise. Daiki thinks he gets a glimpse of a familiar sign, black sketchy characters again written on those, but he lets them pass by without touching them, avoiding them as if they could cut him. Considering the speed of their flight, they probably can, after all. "About what?" he asks against his will, feigning fleeting distraction, one moment before noticing the rickshaw as the last few letters flutter away in the string of wind leaving the street in sight.

Satsuki sighs, looking resignedly at the rickshaw pulled over the sidewalk; she moves closer to it, touches the huge wooden wheels and then sighs again, heavier, the structure of the rickshaw shaking along with her shoulders. "Catching goldfish."

Daiki snorts as he circumnavigates the peculiar vehicle in lazy strides. "I'll just watch," he says, before sinking down on the other side of the rickshaw, hidden from Satsuki's stern glare, arms propped on his knees and chin in hand as he admires Akashi's pale hands working on the old wool-winder, the common fishing line being slowly unravelled and turned into a thin golden thread; a shiny skein hangs down and banks up on the wooden plate at Akashi's side.

"I guess this is enough," Akashi murmurs, his kneeling figure giving no sign of acknowledging Daiki's presence. He raises the thread holding one end accurately between two fingers. Elegantly, he dunks it in the limpid water that fills the little basin at his knees, disturbing the motionless surface with utmost delicacy, the thread floating on and below it, catching the attention of the small goldfish twitching restless in the water.

"Is this good?" Daiki asks, slightly perturbed, as Akashi finally catches one – a tiny crimson goldfish bucking madly against the thick air, its gills gasping convulsively for water and its toothless mouth grasping the thread as if it's the only thing it could do to survive – it isn't. It could let go.

"Wasn't this what we wanted?" Akashi asks in a condescending voice while he drags the fish out of the basin and takes in one hand a plastic bag already full of water. Only when it's inside its element again does the fish let go of the string and start swimming again. Except that it seems sadder in Daiki's eyes, closed in by the transparent, curving walls that surround it. Daiki wonders how it must feel to be a pet fish.

Akashi smiles, instead, looking unusually satisfied as he follows Daiki up on his feet, the black fabric of his sober yukata falling down his left shoulder and the rugged iron collar that he nonchalantly sports around his neck shaking with the dangling broken chain that sways steadily from one collarbone to the other like a hissing snake. "I've got other things to do now."

He finally looks at Daiki then, sharp eyes as blue and cold as ice, staring calculatingly at him through red locks of tousled hair. "I'm giving it to you," he says as he thrusts the fish whirling in the plastic bag at Daiki, who catches it just in time for it not to fall with a tragic splash to the unwelcoming ground.

"What…" he starts, but Akashi cuts him off, drawing closer with a soft rubbing of swirling fabric and a swift palm swoops over the back of Daiki's neck and forces him to crouch to the other's level. Daiki can only see a blur of icy eyes before Akashi's lips brush against the side of his face.

"It's true that goldfish have short memories," Akashi whispers in his ear, before darting his tongue out to languidly lick Daiki's earlobe. It goes lower; it follows his jaw line, comes to the scowling corner of his mouth. Daiki feels his body shiver in thrill as he lets his eyes fall shut. "Did you enjoy the seconds?"

There's no time left for Daiki to answer or for the flicker of dryness to take root deep in his guts making them feel like papier-mâché scraping against his insides for Akashi slips away, calm and collected as always, no trace of emotion behind his slit pupils as he gazes at Daiki's puzzled face with disinterest. "Jump in," he commands. "It's time to go."

Daiki churns the plastic bag in his hands experimentally, eyeing it critically before asking, "What the hell does one do with a fish?" because he doesn't know how to take care of things, things usually just follow him mindlessly – but he doesn't wait for a reply as he bursts out laughing at them, all sat inside the rickshaw with bored expressions and looking ridiculous. And Akashi doesn't look like the type of guy who can carry them all.

"Are you going to cart us around?" Daiki can't help but snicker uncontrollably, mockingly. "That's _so_ not you, Akashi."

"I'd like some pizza," Akashi says. "This is the fastest way."

Daiki doesn't need to be ordered around twice, but the moment he sets foot on the floor of the rickshaw, crushing Murasakibara's leftover junk with his sneaker with an unpleasant crunching sound, he feels his knees wobble for no reason.

"Is Tetsu coming with us?" he asks no one in particular, and it's Akashi again who answers with an eerie smile as he grabs the handles of the vehicle.

"He'll catch up to us. Eventually."

And the captain moves forward.

The wheels of the rickshaw creak dangerously with every flaw of the ground as they pass through the streets as fast as sound. The places they visit are unfamiliar, great halls of shopping malls and schools and shops selling Christmas presents come and go along with the faces and the voices of people merging together in a single phantasmagoria of colours. Daiki looks around and the only thing he can discern in the visible chaos surrounding them is the dejected face of a slouchy, black haired man, before it disappears again in the blur of the crowd. The light shines stronger the more they travel and Daiki notices the sweat that drenches his companions' jerseys.

"I'm so bored," Kise whines as he improvises for a fan with his fatigued hand flailing centimetres away from his sweaty neck, his arms dangling over one side of the rickshaw, head thrown back in exasperation. "This ride, him," he continues. "You guys. Everything."

"Shut up," Midorima hisses, taping his fingers meticulously even if he's doing a very poor job at it, with all the shaking and bouncing of the rickshaw. Giving a pitiful glance at the messed-up white strings repeatedly rolling off his manicured fingertips, Aomine wonders why he doesn't just stop it.

"No, really, guys," Kise says. He looks truly jaded, his whole face lax with boredom except for the tiny, eloquent crease between his blond eyebrows. Kise grasps the edge of his white jersey, the number six imprinted on it stained with wetness, and he passes the fabric over his cheekbone, brushing away every single drop of sweat until the only thing his face gives away is the annoyance. "This is so pointless. I shouldn't even be here with you. We live on different levels. Oh god _boooring_."

"Welcome," Murasakibara murmurs, his teeth gnawing restlessly at his thumbnail. There is a huge, black sting stuck in his fingertip but Murasakibara doesn't seem to mind; his teeth graze against it and push it further into the flesh, not causing a flinch although it looks painful. "Have you ever tried bees?"

Kise groans something unintelligible before closing his eyelids and nipping distractedly at his bottom lip. "Honey makes me sick. I still think this is pointless."

At that point, Daiki snaps too. "Kise, quit it." He looks at Kise and his uncaring face and really wants to slap that unwarranted arrogance away. "What level, you didn't even beat me once. I always win."

"Oh?" Kise unexpectedly perks up at that, glancing at him with a sly smile. "Do you?"

Daiki watches him warily, confused. "Of course I do."

And Kise laughs heartily, openly, in his face, clutching his stomach with one hand before sending Daiki a pitiful look. "It's true that everything is about winning, Aomine. But not everything is about basketball."

The wheel of the rickshaw encounters a hole in the ground and it swerves violently. Daiki snorts. "Yes, it is."

"You haven't changed a bit, Aomine," Kise comments, smoothly. "Well, I remember differently. And I remember good old Tetsu never giving up."

"You're wrong," Daiki spits through gritted teeth and he rubs the tips of his fingers on the skin of his temples, an oncoming migraine pulsing dully against his scalp. "Tetsu isn't like that. He, too—"

But Kise is not listening to him anymore and Daiki doesn't finish his sentence, looking at him as he climbs onto the thin edge of the moving rickshaw. Kise opens his arms wide, slowly and with stilted grace, and he smiles ruefully at the dangerous grey street rushing behind the rickshaw. "If I jump down, will someone try to stop me?"

Murasakibara and Midorima don't even look at him as he speaks; still busy with their own activities, they sometimes cast a sidelong glance at Akashi's back, Midorima fumbling with the increasingly messy tape and Murasakibara scratching his crossed ankles with lazy fingers. Akashi never looks back. Daiki feels the need to say something, but doesn't know what. "Don't do that," he tries lamely.

"I don't need words," Kise snaps at him rather aggressively. "I need action."

Daiki scratches his forehead nervously, thinking hard. Nothing good comes up and the rickshaw is so unstable he could fall off at any moment if he stands up. "Don't. It'll hurt."

As Kise turns his head up and squints his eyes at the sunrays breaking through the grey sky, his smile is large and mirthless, "I hope so."

He jumps as his chuckles still vibrate in the air.

Daiki is there with him when he lands, when his body slams against the rough asphalt with a sickening, crunching noise, his limbs bending oddly in every direction; but Daiki doesn't help him. He looks at Kise in silence as the latter wobbles on his legs awkwardly, pushes himself off the ground with his trembling hands and stands up again, dragging his feet loudly as he makes his way to the little café on the corner of the street.

Daiki follows him, watches him struggle to reach his destination; but with each step Kise becomes stronger and surer, his muscles regaining control and the bones stopping their groans until he manages to walk without a flaw in his steps to the café's elegant door covered in art glass, where Imayoshi stands with his arms crossed and a plastic smile plastered on his fox-like face. He greets a grinning Kise with a nod of the head and shares his place right in front of the door with him. Kise doesn't utter a word; he just stands there, still, and abruptly his eyes look up right at Daiki.

Daiki falters in his stride, his legs losing their balance for a split second; but then he walks faster toward the two of them. He even feels like trying to sound educated as he asks, "Can you move out of the way?"

But, "No can do, sir," Imayoshi replies, ever candid, although his eyes shift from one side to the other, scanning the place with an unnerving gleam in his irises, as if he expects a sudden ambush. "Place for another kind of people."

Daiki tries to peek over their shoulder and through the motley frosted glass but nothing aside from blackened and blurry outlines move haphazardly beyond it. "What kind?"

"Not yours, obviously," Kise says with a cheerful, light tone that clashes with the expression on his face and makes Daiki want to punch them both.

Kicking the ground with his heel before he looks up again, Daiki stretches an affected, lazy smile on his lips, the action reverberating inside him with a pleasant feeling. "I'm going in," he warns, vaguely amused by their theatrical act, before unmercifully slamming his shoulders into theirs. He can't help but smirk at the sound of their groans as they push themselves upright again. He briefly revels in the resistance their broad chests offer, the soles of their shoes scraping on the doormat as they get shoved back some more, and Daiki gives another push, and another, and another, until Imayoshi snorts, irritation showing in his foxy glare along with a smile that's more like an aching grimace; Kise, instead, gives him an unfathomable look as he murmurs, "Don't go there. You can stay here with us and talk."

The entrance hall of the café is already past him when he looks back at Kise and takes in his annoyed face. "We'll talk after you beat me," Daiki tells him in farewell and he walks inside with a confident step, looking around the empty pub with bored eyes, taking note of the elegant cream-colored tablecloths partially covering refined mahogany legs and the lamps spreading a dim light on the dark walls. He chooses a nice, comfy chair in the back of the main room, one beside a large window, fogged up and crying tiny droplets of water that run in narrow trails down the surface.

Beyond the windowpane, squeezing his eyes a bit to discern the shapes in the fog, Daiki sees a playground on the other side of the street. It's crowded with smiling children who run around in a lively frenzy as they do what they want and think about themselves and their own happiness. There are some kids playing on the slide, one climbing frantically on another as they struggle against the slippery metal under their soles that keeps bringing them back down. There are others sitting upright on the swings, launching themselves into the air a few feet off the ground, smiling contentedly as they fly, laughing as they fall.

And then there is a boy, a sandy-haired little kid on a wooden platform at the top of a castle of ropes and he lies on his back, completely lax, head thrown back over the edge and eyes staring blankly at the vast sky looming over him. The happy shouts that fill his ears are the only thing he can hear. A hand falls down over the platform as attentive fingers feel the knot of the ropes fastened at the construction, touch around blindly searching for a way to untie them.

It's then that Daiki notices the kids at the base of the castle, reaching out with their arms and climbing slowly and cautiously up and up, aiming for the platform.

But a nameless man enters his vision, slogging with an indolent step in his walk until he's right in front of the windowpane. Daiki doesn't know him and, nonetheless, the man looks at him with mirthless, knowing eyes as he puts a bony finger on the wet glass and writes a big, bold '110' on it.

"I think we should break up," Tetsu says, nipping at his straw distractedly.

Daiki snaps his head towards him. "What?" He puts some effort into gulping down the sudden knot that cuts off his supply of air. "Why?"

"You know why, Aomine-kun." Tetsu sounds so exasperated, although his face suggests he's actually devoid of any kind of emotion.

Daiki feels sick. He looks at the stranger behind the glass and waits for him to write something else. A tip, a word, a letter, anything. The guy doesn't. He walks away, not looking back. Daiki turns his attention to Tetsu again.

"Do I?" he asks, a spark of rage sparking to life within him. He tries to find some hidden hint in Tetsu's pale hair, his slender fingers, his tongue playing with the straw, but as he can't find it, he hates him; he hates his and his own carelessness.

"Yes, of course," Tetsu says. "You're annoying. You're so conceited and arrogant."

The man beyond the glass being gone, Daiki can see the blond boy again. But this time he has his head propped on his crooked arm as he watches the slow ascent of the other kids with annoyance, his fingers still working on the knots of the ropes but more distractedly, more haphazardly as they run over the thick threads and curves. Then Daiki understands that he's distracted because he's listening to what one of the kids – a big one, the tallest and the fastest although his feet slip down the easiest when the steps are too unsure – is shouting at him. Daiki sees his lips move but he can't understand what he's saying or what the blonde child is thinking.

The smiling waitress of Maji Burger walks in front of their table, one hand clutching at her small notepad and the other waving the butt of a meticulously sharpened pencil, and behaves like she hasn't just walked in on a breakdown. She smiles cheekily, a radiant, despicable grin as she asks them, "How can I help you?"

"Tetsu, I was like that from the start." Daiki feels like there is no actual chance of reasoning with him. He clenches his fist on the edge of the table—only then he remembers he had a baby plant with him.

Tetsu's fingertips drum an elaborate tune on the table, leaving almost imperceptible dents in the surface. "Not from the start." He frowns while his nails dig grooves deeper and deeper. "I can't stand you anymore. You enjoy crushing people under your sole and you're a hindrance to all of us. _God knows_ I can't stand you."

It's Tetsu's eyes that direct his attention to his own knuckles turning shades of white. He tries to loosen his grip but they seem stuck in that position. "Stop saying that," he can only whisper through his teeth. "You knew it. You could have said something sooner."

A sudden loud crack resounds in front of them and Daiki watches Tetsu's hands catch in mild surprise the heavy-looking piece of broken furniture with bevelled edges – the broken off corner of the table. Tetsu contemplates it for a second before gripping it tighter and then standing up.

"I made it quite clear," he sighs while he slides out of his seat without a sound. "And you didn't do anything." The cup of milkshake is abandoned on the wrecked table, with the straw bent in half and nipped at the edges, as Tetsu slips away towards the fast food joint's doors. A low growl escapes Daiki's lips, bringing about an anger in his chest that fuels his legs when he makes to stand up. But—his legs don't come out from under the seat.

He tries to pull at them harder, pulls and pulls until he's sure his joints might dislodge but his feet are stuck underneath, attached to something on the ground and Daiki can't manage to put his head under and see what the problem is – he can't follow the other; he reacted too late and Tetsu swiftly disappears behind closed doors.

He has to pull his body out with the sheer force of his arms, his hands clutching the far edge of the table as he chants in his head an endless string of '_Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it_' that tangles with other words, so many words he intends to say to Tetsu once he's right in front of him, a whole world of truths Tetsu has to face because Daiki is not going to be the only one to fall down – although something tells him that Tetsu won't care enough to get broken.

He drags himself out of Maji Burger with a physical effort he has never experienced before accompanying his muscles and bones and it's only by shoving his whole body against the doors that he manages to open them, finding his hands unable to do it.

Outside, the sky is as grey as iron and when he hears the gust of air hit his clothes, he feels instantly better. Or maybe it's the sight of the basketball in Kagami's hands that succeeds in lifting his spirits.

"Hey there." Kagami is all toothy smirks and fierce glares as he waits for him in the middle of the clear street court, the ball endlessly spinning with lightning speed on his index finger. "Wanna one-on-one? I've been dying to try out this new trick of mine with you."

Daiki takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with wet air but slowing the pulse in his chest. Taking a step closer, he inadvertently trips on a watering can he hadn't seen sitting there in front of the exit. Finding his balance as he kicks away the can, he smiles back, relieved. "Yeah, okay. Thank god you're here, man."

Shoulders dropping low, the stance becomes more lax by the second, changing into something more natural, more animalistic right away, because Kagami has never been one to waste time. He lets the ball fall to the ground, bounce away from him and then back into his hands. Daiki mildly grins out of pleasure and plunges into the challenge.

"How is it going? Everything good?" Kagami breathes out, spinning on his leg and faking an overtake.

Daiki follows the movement easily as he wonders if there's something wrong in his life nowadays. "Ah," he admits reluctantly, "Tetsu left me." And Kagami takes a step back, one to the side, and then jumps in front of him again but this time he bursts forth and past him without Daiki even able to keep his eyes on the ball. Kagami effortlessly dunks it in while Daiki's busy trying to understand the cheat.

"Oh," Kagami says, his lips curving into a perfect circle as he breathes the syllable out in acknowledgement, his eyes following the ball's bounces distractedly until it reaches Daiki's waiting hands. They land on Daiki's face, grudgingly. "Man, that sucks. But... I guess it was the obvious outcome." He quickly swipes the ball from Daiki's hold, the latter being too appalled to stop him. He falls again into his starting stance in front of Daiki and watches him expectantly. But Daiki doesn't comply with his silent request of another round.

"What do you mean?" he asks instead.

Unexpectedly, Kagami doesn't wait for him to feel ready. He lunges forward, overtaking him in one swift movement and Daiki has to force himself to snap out of it to catch up with him and steal the ball. They run back again to the centre of the court while Kagami tells him in heavy breaths, "Well, there's nothing more boring than playing with someone who thinks they can't win, right?"

The ball changes owners once again, because even if Daiki sees the movement soon enough, this time he can't avoid the steal, his reaction is delayed. His right arm moves slower than predicted and Kagami darts past him again. Daiki whirls around to catch him but his legs are getting increasingly heavier and weaker and it's with a slight sense of bafflement that he watches Kagami dunk and then send him a questioning glance.

"I can't move properly," Daiki feels the need to explain. With a shocking effort, he manages to raise an arm above his shoulder to show its growing sluggishness; but Kagami arches his eyebrows high, as if he doesn't get the problem and Daiki wonders if Kagami's just stupid or if it's his own imagination that's making his body feel so heavy.

But when they try again, Daiki can't even move his legs more than a few steps before starting to wheeze. Kagami doesn't seem to react to this in any way discernible though; he keeps watching him like he's good to go.

"I'm playing so bad," Daiki hisses in between breaths.

"You can't be bad if you like it," Kagami smirks; but he sounds disgustingly sincere and Daiki finds out he likes the tone a lot less than his usual grumpiness. "This time I win, but you shouldn't stop trying."

Something similar to an iron anvil presses down on his chest, seeping with acid that soaks his internal organs, making them all burn in unison. "You can't win," he spits out with a renewed venom that drips easily from his tongue. "You're not… I am the one who… I _always_ win at basketball. You _can't_ win alone."

Kagami places one hand on his hip, keeping the ball unsafely in the crook of his elbow as he watches Daiki with the same wonder a kid would show for an angry, wounded animal behind cage bars, murmuring to himself, "You really haven't changed"—something that, Daiki realizes, he understands probably because the sound of the sentence and the movement of lips has become quite familiar to him. He also notices he could easily steal the ball now, if his legs and arms ceased being iron bars.

"You see, not everything is about basketball," Kagami informs him matter-of-factly, sounding curious about what his own words imply. Scratching his chin with dubious fingers, he takes a moment to himself before glancing back at him and asking, thoughtful, "Do you believe in fate, Aomine?"

Daiki gasps again, trying to force air into his shrunken lungs, his hands clutching at the fabric of his shirt and pushing hard against his heart as he falls to his knees. His breaths are so heavy his whole body shakes uncontrollably with every one of them, his wheezes struggling to come out of his throat. It's like he's trying to breathe with his head stuck in a pool of sand, the grains sliding down his throat and leaving notches on the inside. Under Kagami's look of mild interest that shows vaguely on his face, he opens his mouth again to make the greatest effort.

"Help… me." For a moment, he isn't sure he's said it because he doesn't hear anything coming out of his lips. The only positive sign he gets between the racks of his chest is Kagami's face scrunching up in what looks like confusion.

"What?" Kagami asks indeed, dubious. "What did you say?"

Daiki has no more breath to talk as he slouches down, with his nails scraping against the ground and nicking the surface. He falls backwards, his eyes squeezing shut on their own, impossible to use again as well as any other part of his body that feels like it's covered in an invisible steel suit.

But suddenly his lungs fill again with welcomed air and he expands back to his original from like a deflated balloon swelling again from its mouth to its end. That seems to give all of his body more consistency and solidity than it ever had in his life. The pressure against his chest spreads agreeably throughout him, weighing his back down on a pile of cushions. When his eyes open again, the dim afternoon light that seeps through the closed, opaque curtains washes over the leather couch of the familiar living room and gives Tetsu's blue hair a mesmerising luminescence. He props his neck up a bit on the sofa's low arm to have a better look at the other, who's sprawled on him, wrapped up in his overly large sweater, as pitch black as his own, to the point it's not clear where one ends and the other begins - and Tetsu stares at him with wide, clear eyes, chin propped on his stretched hands right on his upper chest and a small, pleased smile adorning his face.

It takes only a 'hey' from him to make Daiki breathe better, despite the other's weight. He closes his eyes in relief for a second, takes a deep breath and clears his mind.

"Am I dreaming?"

Gentle knuckles brush against Daiki's cheek affectionately. Tetsu's eyes light up with a spark of amusement and confusion as he slides higher on Daiki's body to better reach his face.

"Uhm, no?" he murmurs and Daiki trusts him when Tetsu cranes his neck to plant soft-looking lips on his, tenderly, short kisses before lingering on them longer, languidly coaxing his mouth open and groaning into it, the sound reverberating in Daiki's every fibre as Tetsu's tongue runs against his teeth, against his own.

Craving for more, hands glide to Tetsu's back, clutching the fabric of his baggy sweater, slipping under the shirt – he wants to feel the softness of Tetsu's skin, the heat radiating from it; he wants—needs to make his presence as real as possible.

His eyes fall shut almost without him realizing it, blackness enveloping his drowsy mind but still showing him Tetsu kissing him, letting him touch that familiar body, ruffling his dark hair with light fingers – and slowly sliding them across his face, reaching beyond his jaw, slipping around his throat in a feeble caress, the thumbs brushing against his Adam's apple as if they want to carve into memory every single curve of his neck. Tetsu only lets out a soft gasp as Daiki passes his fingertips over the bundles of the boy's spine.

Tetsu starts moving then; slowly, lazily, like he has all the time in the world for this, for staying there with him – and Daiki believes they have it. He lets a moan part his lips, raspy and low as Tetsu presses himself against his groin, tantalizing and looking so _touchable_. Daiki hears the heat in his chest pumping blood loudly in his ears; a calm, regular pace that makes him feel safe. In that moment, Daiki almost feels _peaceful_, to his very core.

He gets pushed down just a little harder and groans again, arms ceasing to wander and seek skin contacts, tightening behind Tetsu's back, holding him against his chest as close as he can – and that's when his heart flutters, drinking in the feather-like softness of that single minute of quiescence that comes with a realization of a stark simplicity: Tetsu is there. He's there and he's with him, and this is the one thing Daiki doesn't want to ever let go.

So he doesn't notice right away the subtlety of Tetsu's hands around his throat as they oh so slowly tighten too, until he starts gasping for more air.

It's a natural reflex and a shiver of confusion that make his eyes fly open – but when he sees Tetsu, looking right at him, right through him with dead, void eyes, he realizes.

A breath away from his mouth, Tetsu asks him in an easy-going whisper that doesn't match his eyes, "Do you remember this?"

Daiki remembers but doesn't say anything about that, scared of Tetsu's callous stare, Tetsu's weight erasing every chance of escape, Tetsu's fingers cutting off his supply of air millimetre by millimetre. Of Tetsu. He's scared of _Tetsu_. "I can't breathe," he wheezes instead.

But the other just holds on tighter. As long index fingers tickle Daiki's jaw, tracing its curve distractedly, his voice continues, but with such a low timbre that Daiki doubts the sound is really coming out of his mouth, "This is perfect."

The hoarse gasp that leaves his chapped lips has the only effect of bringing Tetsu's face closer and closer, as if he craves for another one to _listen_ to it even better and when his cheek brushes against Daiki's, his mouth softly whispers words right in the shell of Daiki's ear, heedless of all the useless squirming. "I can't fuck this up. I _won't_ fuck this up."

Daiki tries not to listen; he swallows but he hurts himself in the process – he coughs out precious air that he's not able to breathe in again on the next try. His hands twitch with the need to grip at Tetsu's fingers and pull them away, help him regain oxygen. Maybe – maybe – he could free himself. But against better judgment, his arms act on their own volition as they only hug Tetsu so tight he suspects he's the one suffocating the other now.

"Tetsu…" he croaks at last, frowning at the black dots flashing in the corners of his vision. "Let me go."

In response, Tetsu disentangles himself from Daiki's grip harshly, so abrupt Daiki's eyes open wide in shock despite the pressure and heaviness of his eyelids. But instead of revelling in the partially lifted weight, Daiki almost whimpers at the loss of contact and at that point he's also scared of himself.

Tetsu pulls himself back, letting Daiki see through distorted lenses the first emotion in his blue eyes as he says in a voice that's Tetsu's again, right down to the last inflection, "Too bad you already fucked it up long ago."

And with that, Tetsu's hold boosts him up violently from the couch and he's sit in the usual seat.

The windows show almost nothing beyond them, with the dense fog that surrounds the place – he doesn't even know what his eyes are searching for as they frantically scan the other side of the barely visible street, spotting the unclear outline of what seems like high steel constructions. It looks like there are people on top of them, he thinks as the fog dissipates a bit—no, there's only one on one of them. The person looks short and lonely as his head is turned to the other construction, some kids talking amongst each other – except for one, the only one sorting out the shape of the lone boy in the misty weather, shouting something at him that makes the boy look right back. But Daiki leaves them be, although feeling somehow unsettled, because now the sidewalk is deserted except for a guy; black-haired and haggard, he wears his evident depression in an unnerving way, as if he feels like the only victim of the world's twisted cruelty. He comes closer, dragging his feet on the concrete with a squeaking noise and he looks at Daiki. He looks at him with hateful eyes even as he writes a big, meaningless '112' on the window.

"I think we should break up," Tetsu says, looking past Daiki's shoulder in dismay.

Daiki snaps his head towards him. "What?" he asks and nausea doesn't wait long to come bubbling up his throat. "No. No no no, fucking _no_, Tetsu, _why_? Aren't we doing fine?"

"Don't be a baby," Tetsu sighs, quite apathetically. "You had it coming."

"Did I," he wonders aloud, but it's only a meagre attempt at denial, because he knows. Of course he knows.

"That's another thing I hate about you," Tetsu admits, with a frosty voice that grips Daiki's heart and makes it scrunch up in pain and he feels like vomiting again. "You behave like you don't know what's wrong, like everything is right the way it is. Like it's others' fault if _this_ is messed up. It's not, Aomine-kun."

There's a waitress in the room. She walks beside them with a soft tapping of low heeled shoes and smiles at them, notepad in hand and work hat roosted in her hair.

"How can I help you?" she asks sweetly and Daiki's about to shoo her away, because no one is allowed interrupt this—but out of the corner of his eyes, he catches a glimpse of familiar blue. He turns to her, confused, and looks at her defined outlines, so crisp that she looks like a sticker glued to a shady background; at her strange face and stranger sharp sky-blue eyes that don't smile as her mouth does and suddenly, everything appears to lose its light except for that one girl. He gapes to her as his heart falls down to his stomach.

"I don't…" He clenches his fists so hard his nails dig into his skin and although he can barely manage to murmur, he feels too desperate to stop. "I don't know. _Can_ you help?"

The waitress's smile falls then, looking like it has never been there in the first place; it tails off and curves down in a painful grimace. Her eyes surpass him, not looking at him anymore but beyond, beyond the windowpane and the street and the lamppost. "I don't know anymore," she murmurs in such a low voice that Daiki has to strain his ears to hear her. "I think it's too late."

He hasn't the voice to answer her before she turns and drifts away, back to her daily job with her composed, unwavering pace.

"You've changed, Aomine-kun," Tetsu's voice brings his attention back and Daiki watches him with new eyes, a semblance of comprehension teetering at the seams of his consciousness but not quite catchable, too elusive and far from his small reach. Rapidly, unsurely, he looks around to examine the place for the first time and for a split second, everything seems _fake_.

"Why do you keep on bringing me here?"

"It's just a bad habit of yours," Tetsu replies but Daiki can't quite grasp what that answer means. "What's the point of a relationship whose success you gave up on from the very start?"

"It was only… I didn't, then," Daiki snarls and shakes his head accusingly. "_You_'re the one who gives up."

"This is a familiar scene already. It's only natural for it to happen now."

"But I'm _trying_!" Daiki roars at him, hoping he will flinch, bat an eye, show _any_ kind of emotion other than disinterest. But Tetsu doesn't do any of those things. His blank eyes bore holes into his soul and this time, it's Daiki who looks away. "Tetsu," he tries again, a lot feebler than ever before, "I'm really trying…"

"I can't stand you."

He shows no sign of mercy either; he just grips his milkshake and turns it in his fingers, again and again, until it looks like a spinning top. Daiki growls loudly as he buries his head between his forearms, his hands pressing his nape down against the table until his forehead should prickle with pain. He squeezes his eyes shut as a weak protest escapes him, "Stop saying that."

But Tetsu doesn't listen to him. "I can't stand how you've changed, how much of a jerk you've become. I hoped you could change back, but… You're so rude and _always_ bored. You never care about people, about friends. Ah no, wait, you have _no_ frie—"

"Stop it, stop it!" Daiki yells as he presses his arms against his ears as hard as he can and hopes it will suffice to block out all sounds. But it doesn't. "Stop it, Tetsu. Please…" he begs, his voice hoarse. He knows he must look pitiful, his vocal cords cracking at the edges and not enough courage to come out of the dark hiding spot his eyes seek, like a baby running away from the inevitable storm of scoldings—he must _really_ look pitiful.

"It's useless." Tetsu states it like it's his definitive word, his absolute, unchangeable verdict and Daiki jerks his head upwards to see Tetsu drag himself off the soft-looking cushion of the seat without even a rubbing noise. He stands up, not bothering to spare him one last glance. "I don't settle for damaged goods, Aomine-kun."

He thinks it's ruefully funny the way he feels then; the way he's the one on the receiving end of words that hit like sledgehammers—it truly _is_ a fitting retaliation and he almost wants to compliment Tetsu for it. '_You did it just right_', he wants to tell Tetsu in his unreal, nightmare-like stupor that stems the tide of thoughts. So he's even more surprised when he manages to understand there's no time to lose in catching his breath for once. "What? Tetsu, no, I can do this," he says as he makes to catch Tetsu's arm. But Tetsu is swift; he slips away under his trembling fingers as easily as a bar of soap.

He disappears out the doors when Daiki's still leaving his seat and calling his name over and over, the panic having his legs wobble dangerously – or maybe it's the floor, that looks like it's racked by waves of tiles that rock Daiki on his unstable feet and bear him away from the doors. There's only a monotonous string of '_No no no_' in his head and on his lips as he looks at the exit drifting further from him. He makes a run for it before it's too late – he limps as fast as he can on his stiff legs towards Tetsu until it feels like a miracle when his hands fall on the handle and he slams into the closed doors.

A shallow layer of water splashes around his ankles and drowns the floor tiles, the sound of it echoing in the room as if it was an empty cave. It's a familiar locker room the one he's in, even if almost every surface is covered in dark green climbers, the ragged edges of the leaves starting to rot from the humidity – he recognizes the linear scratches on the side of the bench, the book inside the open locker on the far left of the wall and he's not surprised to find a young ginkgo tree in it too. But he can't get closer to it, for there are two persons, sat side by side on the bench in comfortable silence as one of them – a woman, tall and thin in her mouse-grey tailored outfit and wet high heels, her tight hair bun at the top of her brown head making her look far too uptight and haughty – is fumbling with a broken recorder in her hands, trying to repair it, until a tiny piece of metal falls and sinks with a splash and she swears, kneeling down and delving into the muggy water, moving her hands around helplessly. The black haired guy beside her, slouchy and lazy, doesn't bother to help her or even watch her.

Daiki knows he has to avoid them – he has to reach the other end of the locker room and open the other exit door, whose outlines disappear into the thick greenery that however leaves his path clear. It's just a straight line from where he is and the two guys have their backs to him – he can do this, he _has_ to do this. And so, keeping a careful eye on them, Daiki starts slewing against the wall, his feet sliding slowly sideways while his hands keep him resting on the leaves' surface, preventing him from sinking too much into that green unwelcoming carpet. But every one of his steps causes soft ripples in the water, his back brushes loudly against the climbers and when the elegant woman's head snaps upwards, his heart gives a vehement tug on his ribcage and he feels he won't make it.

A sense of dread creeps up on him and seizes his chest as he continues his slide to the left, the sound of the water so loud in his ears he doesn't understand how the two can't hear him. He feels it drying the strength inside him, drinking his will with such a thirst and making his heartbeats so deafening that at one point he's sure he'll faint and those eyes will hunt him down and their claws will rip his face off bloody and unmercifully—but his left hand falls on a metal handle, a thick iron bar that he frantically pulls down and pushes forward, sprinting out of the locker room as if he has hounds on his heels and before he does anything else – breathe, gasp, speak, see, run – he turns around and slams the door closed.

On the other side, there are artificial lights hanging from the high ceiling, not all switched on, and so the familiar warm basketball court that welcomes him is left in the shadow around its edges. The gym seems to be completely empty; however, the noise of a ball bouncing on the floor resonates among the immense four walls that surround him, bouncing off the rims of the baskets and over the highest step of the large podium that's placed in the middle of the court, painted in the light shade of red coming from the huge scoreboard attached to the wall, showing the number '100'. The bouncing drags on as he scans the place but can't see anything around him—anything except blurs of blue that swirl past him. He can't find Tetsu until the other bumps shoulders with him so hard, Daiki has to stand upright again.

"Wanna play?" Tetsu asks, causing Daiki's body to stiffen in anxiety as he casually spins the ball on his index finger and then tosses it forward, offering it. Daiki promptly catches it as he watches Tetsu bend his knees a little and spread his arms low. But Daiki keeps the ball in hand.

"You're not going to win, Tetsu."

He's seen that look too many times – directed at others as well as him – to not recognise it, the one that makes Tetsu's fiery eyes glint in determination and his mouth thin out into a firm line that will never quiver until the unpredictable end is reached. "It doesn't matter," Tetsu answers him. "I will never give up."

The next words leave his mouth in what sounds like spite, but unfortunately Daiki knows better – knows that there's no room for spite in him anymore. "You're a liar. Everyone says you don't know how to give up. But it's not true."

"Says you," Tetsu remarks.

"You always leave me."

He openly chuckles in his face when he hears Daiki's mutter. He seems disappointed too, as if he didn't want to go back to a bothersome topic.

"It's kind of funny to hear you say that."

Daiki can almost see the ice forming on his tongue, pulsing in his blazing eyes like a source of light and true spite – Tetsu's is, harsh and real.

"But I'm different from you," he says and the confession makes the world clearer, sharper for a second, and the next words find him easily, like a weak, fleeing truth blossomed a long time before that had been just waiting to come out. "You're the amazing one. You never gave up on anything, never, no matter how much shit people tried to pull at you. That's one of the things I loved the most about you. So why, Tetsu..." He stops mid-sentence. He has to breathe, because his lungs are getting squashed by an invisible pressure that keeps him a few feet away from the other, like an insurmountable barrier that follows them and keeps them in line. And although the deep breath calms him down, he can't stop the broken voice that comes out of him as he asks, "Why, of all things, do you have to give up on _me_?"

No answer reaches his ears. Tetsu scratches his chin thoughtfully, plain tranquillity clouding his frame as he runs his finger over the seam of his red and white jersey and, after a while, parts his lips and only says, "Let's play."

It is a peculiar game, the one they play then, with Kise lazily throwing tomatoes from the side-lines towards their feet and Tetsu avoiding them with small jumps here and there and Kagami running around in order to wipe them out of Tetsu's path, while Daiki can only smash them under his feet although the point is doing exactly _not_ that. His soles become more slippery the more of them he squashes, to the point where he can't concentrate on the basketball anymore, Tetsu easily stealing it from his fingers and bouncing it on the dirty court, raising splashes of red juice every time.

And when they are in front of each other, Tetsu bends his knees a bit and stretches his body up as he throws his lucky shot. Daiki knows he could have blocked it – it would have taken just him raising his arm in the air and the ball would have bounced against his palm right back into Tetsu's hands, but he slips. His feet slip on the cemetery of sauce and peels dirtying the floor and walls of the court and he doesn't catch it. His fingers don't even brush the surface of the ball because then he has to use his reflexes not to fall down miserably like a puppet with cut strings. The ball passes over his head into a perfect arc that lingers in the air for what seems like an eternity before it falls into the hoop.

"I was so helpless when I was with you."

Daiki can't find the strength to tear his eyes away from Tetsu, serious despite having scored the first and only point of the game. The lights start vibrating upon them as the last digit on the scoreboard changes into '1' with a thundering sound.

"I gave everything to my team," Tetsu carries on, unwavering, "_everything_ in order to win, with you all. I became invisible to the world for you. But now... I get it, now I understand. Seirin and Kagami made me grow so much, can't you see? You were a _chain_, Aomine-kun. You taught me nothing, except that this is a useless effort—"

"Those were just words!" Daiki yells back before he can stop himself – not that it would make a difference. Tetsu is a clean surface of still water that looks like nothing could disturb it. But Daiki can be inappropriately stubborn sometimes and so he takes his pebbles one by one and accompanies them with a desperate voice that is broken and teary and he can't fucking stand it – but it would be worse if he didn't try. "Weren't yours too?"

Tetsu sighs, clearly annoyed by his objection, as if Daiki had unceremoniously insulted him. "You know there was nothing I could do," he spits out, with a venom that has never come out of him before and Daiki fears for the worse then. "And now with you, Aomine-kun... I feel tired. I don't need you anymore now. You really haven't changed."

His hands fly to his ears and although he feels like a baby, the only thing he needs is to not hear those words. But the sounds of them don't come from Tetsu's mouth anymore: it's all around him, inside his skull already and he can't block it out. "Not you too... Not you! You know I wasn't like this!"

He doesn't remember ever having felt this kind of intense, painful throbbing in his chest before this; it's like his heart is trying to punch its way out of his ribcage when he sees Tetsu's vacant stare to the side as he says, "I don't really remember those times anymore."

It's a reflex that brings his hand forward, that makes him reach out for Tetsu the second those words leave that mouth and it's only because he has a constant lump blocking his throat that he doesn't start screaming his head off before he can even grab Tetsu by his shoulders and shake him back to his old self – the one that gave him anything that wasn't indifference.

His hands fly right through Tetsu.

There's a moment of complete stillness around him as he slowly replays what just happened, the scene like a tape folding and unfolding back and forth, again and again in his mind as he looks at his hands but doesn't see them, doesn't see anything except an almost unperceivable transparency in Tetsu's features – until he suddenly can blink it all away. His throat is free from the lump, his heart ceases beating so hard it hurts because suddenly there's nothing to do, nothing to say; everything just ends then and there.

Tetsu looks at him with a curious expression, maybe even stupefied but Daiki doesn't know from what, doesn't even wonder. "You see? You're a shadow to me, Aomine-kun. You lost your light long ago."

It's his hands that tell him he's crying when he sees them coming away from his face wet, tears dripping from the tips of his nails. He brings one back to Tetsu but this time he doesn't try to touch. He just hovers centimetres away from Tetsu's skin, Tetsu's hair, Tetsu's face. He drags his fingers closer, farther, hopefully searching for a point in the air where what they feel isn't just nothingness – a breeze, the brush of a single strand of hair, a jolt of electrostatics burning the tips.

But there's nothing.

"Please, Tetsu," he whispers and he's not sure Tetsu's heard him, so he raises his voice but that's when it cracks with a pathetic sob stifled through clenched teeth. "_Please_ I'm begging you. Give me... this one chance."

He doesn't know what to expect after he's said it. He thinks of a lot of possibilities, of answers, of insults, of refusals. But Tetsu knows how to strike, knows where to cut with that sneaky invisible knife he learned to use over the years and indeed, Tetsu does the worst thing he could do.

Basketballs start flooding around them in loud and distressing bounces when Tetsu deliberately ignores Daiki, walking farther away every time the wall of basketballs hides him from sight. He walks towards Kagami and Kise and Satsuki – and Satsuki offers him a heart-warming smile that lovably crinkles the skin around her pink eyes as if he's her most adored person in the world.

If it hadn't been for a soft grunt of pain, Daiki probably would never have taken notice of the slouchy black-haired guy sat beside the podium amidst the hundreds of balls rolling everywhere out of their containers, a flow without any restraint. He just sits there in silence, supporting with a wan hand the flimsy branches of the small ginkgo tree placed on the lowest step of the podium. With the other, he holds a pair of scissors, sharp thick scissors cutting off the tips of those branches, one by one, little stunted leaves fluttering down with every snap of the pivoted blades and he cuts and cuts until he reaches the base of a branch and nothing remains except for the roots under them—Daiki loses it.

"It was you," he snarls lowly. There's a wave of pure, tenacious anger rising inside him, washing his bones and muscles and taking hold of his blank mind. He releases it without a second thought, because there's nothing holding it back anymore. "It was fucking _you_, you fucker."

His legs move on their own, approaching the guy with long unstoppable strides. The guy sees him, notices him coming closer with a menacing halo of fury rousing his body but he doesn't stop cutting. So Daiki lunges forward, the anger making his legs jump faster and higher and he's on the guy in a split second, grabbing him by the neck and tightening his fingers without a trace of doubt as he growls in the other's face, "Don't fucking touch it!"

But something else happens then—there's no black-haired guy slammed into the ground trapped under his thighs, no ominous face sporting dead eyes rolling lifelessly in their sockets—there is Tetsu, looking at him with half-lidded eyes and head slightly thrown back, exposing his pale neck—and then there's the Tetsu he knows now, the cold one who shoves him off with an acrimony in his limpid eyes that confuses Daiki all the more because—_'what is happening, what happened, I wasn't...'_—"Tetsu, I'm sorry, I'm..."

He has to jump back to avoid Tetsu's violent hands that try to punch him again in the ribs. A fist charges towards his chest and Daiki catches it, barely stops it by sliding his hand around the wrist, thwarting it from hitting him—and then Tetsu's face is flushed again, lips parted, saying something, groaning a word—"Don't _touch_ me," Tetsu growls back at him, trying to free himself from Daiki's insecure hold and at the same time pushing him back—skin damp with perspiration glistens in the light of the reflectors as his Adam's apple bobs up in a gasped gulp and Tetsu looks so _kissable_ right then—but then Tetsu's vehement persistence puts an end to Daiki's bewildered state. He pushes against Daiki's chest with both hands with violent strength and Daiki stumbles back, not managing to muster any resistance and when Tetsu shoves him harder one last time, Daik falls backwards – one hand reaching out to grasp at something, anything, outstretched fingers clenching in thin air as his other arm falls limply to the side, unmoving, dead, caught in the storm of basketballs hitting him from every direction – and he opens his eyes wide.

.

.

.

.

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* * *

**Things will be somehow clearer in the second chapter. Or maybe not. The main ones. The rest is up to you.**  
**So I followed two prompts for this fic! One was "Imagine A breaking up with B and B's soul shattering or something along those lines as A walks away." But I was like "OMG NO YOU SATAN I could never do that!" But then I saw another prompt and decided that, if I put them together, I could do it. Hope you enjoyed.**  
**( OMG IT'S SO DAMN DIFFICULT TO DESCRIBE A DREAM. LIKE. NO SENSE OF TOUCH OR AWARENESS OF THE WEIRD AND. IDK ANYMORE )**


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